Bud Nipping

When one is creating bonsai, one of the most attractive feautures are dense or compressed canopies/foliage. To achieve this genuine look, one must nip off new buds and shoots from the tips of the foliage. The best way to do this is by using your fingers as cutting the buds off with scissors turns the tips of your foliage brown. 

Nipping off the buds stimulates back growth. This will help you to thicken up your  canopies and also help you to maintain the shape of your bonsai. Another attractive feature of bonsai is good leaf reduction, leaf reduction will occur when your canopies thicken this is because the tree has more leaves so it will want to retain as much water as possible, therefore it reduces the surface area of its leaves to decrease transpiration. 

Once the buds are nipped off the production of auxins is brought to a halt (Auxins are growth hormones that make plants grow in length). Once the production of auxins has stopped,  the production of the hormone cytokinin begins. This hormone stimulates  axillary bud growth (Back growth) and also causes apical dominance. Therefore the trunk of your tree will thicken. 

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Caution: nipping forces trees to use stored energy, therefore it should only be done to healthy trees. It is also not advisable to nip buds during winter because the trees recieve less energy/sun.